This past spring in preparation for a retirement party for Dr. Art Brown, University of Arkansas stream ecologist and benthologist, I learned of the passing of my friend, Jayne Kiner, on January 19, 2015. This article is in memoriam of Jayne, a dear friend and colleague.​In the spring of 1997 when I began a Master’s Program at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, one of my cohorts was Jayne Kiner. At the time, she lived with her husband, Gary, in Fort Smith, Arkansas; had rented an apartment in Fayetteville; and was traveling home on the weekends. Since we began in the same graduate program under Dr. Art Brown, we had many of the same classes together and spent quite a bit of time studying together for tests and working together on class projects. We hit it off as friends from the very beginning. As Jayne moved closer to home in North Dakota a few years after completing her masters, I mainly kept in touch with her through annual Christmas cards, and a rare email.​

​While biology was one of Jayne’s many interests, I remember her being one of the most well-read individuals I ever met, along with having an incredible vocabulary. Once on a 1999 road trip to a North America Benthological Society meeting in Wisconsin, the entire van-full of graduate students took turns reading aloud Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (our version of “books on tape”). Jayne was an enthusiastic reader and could explain ANY unknown terms – a walking dictionary/thesaurus. We were all very impressed!​

U of AR Graduate Work, 1998, northwest Arkansas.

​One saying that I always associate with Jayne is – “Come back with your shield…or on it!” She shared with me that her dad always said that to her as she was growing up when she was attempting something new or daunting. Jayne explained to me that it meant – Accomplish the deed or die trying! I had never heard it before and certainly never forgot it since. We occasionally said it to each other when we were taking finals or trying to complete some challenging class assignment – along with a smile and a good laugh. That is what I remember most about Jayne. Her smile, good humor, and enthusiasm for learning! She inspired me through graduate school with her companionship and determination.

I have many other stories of my graduate school adventures with Jayne – all-night O2 level stream monitoring in the Quachitas, pulling her truck out of a stream bed that she mistook for a gravel road, Zoology lab planning meetings gone awry, zippy operatic arias in the elevator before Statistics class, and on and on. I was saddened to hear of her passing and when I remember our times together, it still doesn’t feel like she is gone. Jayne was a special friend of mine who lives on in my memories. And, I miss her.

-JMB​*The source of the shield story is a Roman writer named Plutarch. He wrote, “Another woman handed her son his shield, and exhorted him: ‘Son, either with this or on this.” The quote is found in Plutarch’s Moralia, a collection of his writings, in a section called Sayings of Spartan Women. Source: http://www.straightdope.com by Una Persson, staff of The Straight Dope Science Advisory Board